Dormant

/ˈdɔɹmənt/ · adjective

Meaning

Inactive, sleeping, asleep, suspended..

Definitions by Sense

1. Inactive, sleeping, asleep, suspended.
2. (heraldry) In a sleeping posture; distinguished from couchant.
3. (architecture) Leaning.
4. (architecture) A crossbeam or joist.

Example Sentences

Grass goes dormant during the winter, waiting for spring before it grows again.

The bank account was dormant; there had been no transactions in months.

This volcano is dormant but not extinct.

It is by lying dormant a long time, or being at first very rarely exercised, that arbitrary power steals upon a people.

The repression at Tiananmen Square dealt a serious but not fatal blow to the pro-democracy movement. It has been forced to lie dormant until a future moment of opportunity. As the revolutions in Eastern Europe proved, however, that moment will eventually come.

Thresher maws are subterranean carnivores that spend their entire lives eating or searching for something to eat. Threshers reproduce via spores that lie dormant for millennia, yet are robust enough to survive prolonged periods in deep space and atmospheric re-entry. As a result, thresher spores appear on many worlds, spread by previous generations of space travelers.

A dormant and defunded CPB could have become vulnerable to future political manipulation or misuse, threatening the independence of public media and the trust audiences place in it, and potentially subjecting staff and board members to legal exposure from bad-faith actors.”

a lion dormant

Synonyms for dormant

Antonyms for dormant

Related Words

Word Forms

• dormaunt
• dormient
• dormants

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

Practice and Learn More

Frequently Asked Questions